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Just a Word for Porto Rico 



PEDRO CAPO-RODRIGUEZ 

Member of the Vermont State Bar and of the Bar of the 
Supreme Court of the United States 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

1918 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/justwordforportoOOcap 



Just a Word for Porto Rico 



BY 

PEDRO CAPO-RODRIGUEZ 

Member of the Vermont State Bar and of the Bar of the 
Supreme Court of the United States 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

1918 



JUST A WORD FOR PORTO RICO * 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I take it, of course, as a great personal honor for me 
to be here this afternoon with you to participate in this 
festival so well calculated to promote closer acquain- 
tance and better understanding between us Porto Ric- 
ans, Americans of the tropics, and you, New Yorkers, 
New Englanders, Californians, and all other Americans 
of the Continent. 

It is a great personal honor, I say, to be here this 
afternoon with you, as the representative of Porto Rico, 
through the kind suggestion of my name by my dear 
personal friend and beloved fellow countryman, the 
Hon. Felix Cordova Davila, Resident Commissioner of 
Porto Rico in Congress, who wished that I should be 
here as his substitute. 

In this capacity, I wish, first of all to convey to you, 
and through you to the American people, a message of 
gratitude from the people of Porto Rico on this most 
auspicious occasion. This message, ladies and gentle- 
men, I wish to convey more specially to one great Amer- 
ican, whose lofty sense of justice and absolute respect 
for the rights of peoples, made possible the passage of 
this alreadjr famous Jones-Shafroth Act, which we are 
gathered here to celebrate. And that one great Ameri- 
can for whom the eternal gratitude of Porto Rico I can 



*This speech was made before the members and guests of the Colo- 
nial Club of New York on the occasion of the observance of the anni- 
versary of the so called Jones-Shafroth Act, extending to Porto Ricans 
a substantial measure of self-government and the privilege of American 
citizenship, March 3, 1918. 



confidently pledge here this afternoon before this bril- 
liant gathering of distinguished Americans, both from 
Porto Rico and the mainland, could not be other than 
the First American, our beloved President, Mr. Wood- 
row Wilson, the champion of honesty, and moderation 
and fair dealings in the world's politics of our day. 

It is a remarkable coincidence, a wonderful contrast, 
that at a time when the notion of self-aggrandizement, 
dictation, preponderance and force, seems to be sup- 
planting in the minds of belligerent nations across the 
Ocean every possible consideration of decency and 
right, we should be celebrating here this afternoon, 
away from the poisonous gases of autocracy and im- 
perialism, such an act of justice by a powerful demo- 
cratic nation to a self-respecting and dignified, although 
relatively helpless people. 

This act of justice is, although partial in its scope 
and limited in many important ways, a clear and in- 
dubitable acknowledgment and recognition by the 
American Congress of the self-evident proposition that 
the Porto Rican people have a God-given right to man- 
age their own affairs, and solve their own problems in 
their own way, and strive in the direction they shall* 
choose for their own edification and happiness and 
development. 

I am aware of the fact that there are amongst us 
Americans narrow spirits and shortsighted politicians 
and selfish bureaucrats, who would rather have this 
great and powerful nation of ours adopt a policy of 
prejudice and suspicion against a people whose only 
crime before God or man is to wish to attain the condi- 
tion of a free people, master of their own affairs and 



conscious of their own responsibilities before the nation, 
their posterity and the World. 

It is to be lamented that in these bitter days of trial 
and tribulations when all of us Americans should sacri- 
fice before the altar of our Country all personal feelings, 
there should be made for personal purposes, or from 
personal motives, disloyal insinuations of disloyalty 
against a people whose sense of honor and gratitude is 
paramount to every possible consideration of self ad- 
vantage or benefit. 

I do not know whether at this moment I am trans- 
gressing upon the sacred rights of my dear friend and 
exalted Porto Rican, the Hon. Felix Cordova Davila, 
our official representative in Congress, to answer as he 
may choose these preposterous and unjustifiable insin- 
uations; but if I may speak on this auspicious occasion, 
not as a counsel might for a basely slandered client, but 
as one of the directly injured parties, as a Porto Rican, 
as a loyal American, let me say that our loyalty, the 
loyalty of the Porto Rican people, is not measured by 
their aspirations as to the ultimate form that shall 
assume their relations with the United States, but by 
their sense of honor. We owe loyalty to this great na- 
tion as American citizens, and as American citizens, you 
may rest assured that we shall be loyal, and that to be 
such, as well in this occasion as in any other, no other 
consideration is necessary than our honor. 

To those who are cynical enough not to believe in 
honor, to those who claim that we have no individual 
interest in this death struggle between democracy and 
imperialism, I say: Even if it were not a sacred 
duty imposed upon us by honor, because of our Ameri- 



can citizenship; even if we had no interest whatsoever 
in the triumph of right and justice and liberty and 
decency over oppression and tyranny, and despotism, 
which is the concern of all the Western Hemisphere at 
least, we would still be bound to be loyal to this great 
Republic, not only in our outward actions and expres- 
sions of opinion, which can be seen and heard, but 
even in our innermost thoughts and sentiments, which 
are born and felt in the secrecy of our brains and hearts, 
as an eternal debt of gratitude, as an eternal debt of 
love, to those who have been kind and patient with us 
in our political struggle to attain our present degree 
of preparation for complete self-government, to those 
who have taught us the great lessons of liberty and 
democracy, and shown us the advantages of moder- 
ation and tolerance and respect for the opinions of 
others and the preservation of our constitutional order 
and the supremacy of justice and the imperium of law. 
But in nearly two decades of American intervention, 
we have managed to learn beyond your expectations. 
With your help, we have made enormous strides in the 
exercise of self-government; we have developed our re- 
sources; we have expanded our political and econom- 
ical activities; we have acquired the consciousness of 
our being as a distinct and characteristic Porto Rican 
people; we have already proved that we are capable, 
that we are intelligent, that we are patriotic, that we 
can assume and discharge the duties and obligations of 
a self-governing people; and we should be cowards, we 
should not deserve your estimation, we should not be 
worthy even of your respect, if now, for fear of the 
results of these unjustifiable and irrational insinuations, 



7 

Ave should refrain from telling you candidly and frank- 
ly, as true and honorable men should, and out of re- 
spect, gratitude and loyalty to you, that we, as a people, 
recognize and expect you to recognize also, that we 
have attained already our political majority, that we 
are already of age, and must be given the full measure 
of liberty belonging to us as a people. And let me 
say at this time and here that while we are little and 
you are big, our destinies are largely bound together. 
For this reason we must be always united in love, in 
interests, and in the purpose of our lives. It matters 
not whether we shall ultimately be an independent 
State, an absolutely autonomous commonwealth, or an 
integral part of this nation as a full-fledged State there- 
of. The thing to remember, the thing which we all must 
keep constantly in mind, when dealing with each other 
as self-respecting peoples mindful of our respective 
claims, is that, as a result of the historical elements 
which enter into the composition of the Porto Rican 
people, and by virtue of the geographical, strategical 
and political position of Porto Rico, which is so near 
and so important for the national security of the United 
States, and the security of everything which they possess 
or have in the Caribbean or in the vicinity of the Pan- 
ama Canal, and for the development of greater and 
better relations with the other sister republics of the 
American Continent, the thing to remember, I say, is 
that our most cherished hopes of solidarity and recipro- 
cal support must necessarily depend on our mutual 
understanding, cordiality and friendship. And let me 
say in passim, that this mutual understanding, cordial- 
ity and friendship is also the supreme ideal of Pan 



Americanism, of which by one of those hidden and 
inscrutable designs of Providence, Porto Rico is now 
the key. 

It must not be forgotten, ladies and gentlemen, that 
Porto Rico is one of the peoples of America. Our blood, 
our history, our language, our customs, our religion and 
our temperament and mental processes and ideals are 
characteristically those of all Spanish-American peo- 
ples. And although characteristically Spanish Ameri- 
can, as a people distinctly Porto Rican, we claim our 
own history, our own literature, our own customs, our 
own laws. We have our own idiosyncracies, our own 
temperament, our own mental processes and carry in 
our hearts and souls as a sacred possesion of ours, our 
own ideals, our own aspirations and our own definitions 
as to what our own individual place should be in this 
great concert of American peoples. 

You know, however, that the American people, is the 
ultimate arbiter of our destinies; you know that all good 
or bad that may come to us as a people must come to us, 
I say, by your hand through a wise or unwise law en- 
acted by your Congress. I have said your Congress, but 
this I mean only in a qualified manner. What I mean 
is that we legally and really have no voice or vote in 
the making and enactment of what I might call in the 
same manner your laws; the laws which must affect 
our own political, social and economical life, as well 
as the laws which must necessarily affect the nation as 
a political whole only, or any or all of the States and 
Territories and possessions, indirectly, in their indi- 
vidual capacity, because the only participation that 
you have given us in the making of those laws is mere- 



ly a courtesy extended to the Resident Commissioner 
of Porto Rico to have a seat in the House of Repre- 
sentatives. And from this seat in the House at Wash- 
ington the Resident Commissioner of Porto Rico looks 
more like a stranger and an intruder than the repre- 
sentative of my people in the making of your laws. 

I say these things, ladies and gentlemen, with no 
spirit of resentment, antagonism, or disrespect; but I do 
say them in a spirit of enlightenment, in a spirit of 
candor and in a spirit of friendship. 

The law which we are celebrating here is in many 
particulars a good law. As far as it extends to Porto 
Ricans a substantial measure of self-government, it 
opens up to them an opportunity to prove, still farther 
than they have so far proved, their capacity for manag- 
ing their local affairs and cope with the intricacies and 
difficulties and temptations attending the administra- 
tion of public interests. By this law it is extended also 
to Porto Ricans the privilege and the honor of Ameri- 
can citizenship. I find no words in my English vocabu- 
lary to express to you, ladies and gentlemen, the pro- 
found appreciation and deep gratitude of all of us 
Porto Ricans for this distinct proof of confidence and 
trust deposited in us by the American people. 

But now, at this very time, when the old and dis- 
credited international organization seems to be crumb- 
ling to pieces amid the horrible confusion of this great 
war which is devastating Europe, and when all the peo- 
ples of the World seem to be groping in the dark, 
seeking orientations to find a new international order 
which may supplant the archaic and discredited sys- 
tem of imperialism, preponderance, dictation and force, 



10 

which has resulted in this appalling butchery and waste, 
it may not be entirely amiss, ladies and gentlemen, 
to remind you that Porto Rico is a distinct and 
separate people and not an integral part of the 
United States. As you all well know, the Act which 
we are celebrating here has not the effect of incorpo- 
rating Porto Rico as a territory of the United States. 
That most august and exalted of all tribunals, the Su- 
preme Court of the United States, reversing two deci- 
sions of the Supreme Court of Porto Rico and the Dis- 
trict Court of the United States for Porto Rico, has 
recently reaffirmed its solemn declaration made nearly 
twenty years ago, in the famous Insular Cases, that 
Porto Rico is still merely a possession, a piece of terri- 
torial property, something appurtenant and belonging 
to the United States, and nothing more. 

From a purely Porto Rican point of view, and having 
regard only to our present status as a thing possessed, 
as a thing beyond the pale of the Constitution of the 
United States, we consider this definition of our status 
as very humiliating and repulsive and loathsome to our 
sense of dignity and self-respect. Considering it, how- 
ever, as an expression of American policy and patriot- 
ism, no intelligent man in Porto Rico can deny, and 
nobody there does deny, that this statesmanlike and 
far-sighted declaration of the Supreme Court, made by 
Mr. Chief Justice White, leaves entirely open for future 
consideration by an enlightened public ODinion the 
ultimate disposition to be made of Porto Rico by the 
United States. 

But, in the meantime, why not look at this problem 



11 

squarely in the face? Why dodge and evade the real 
issues involved! Why not examine the facts! 

If you wish us to be real Americans, do not deprive 
us of rights and privileges which you have yourselves 
proclaimed in that wonderful monument of American 
history known by the Declaration of Independence, and 
in so many state papers and documents from George 
Washington to Abraham Lincoln and from Abraham 
Lincoln to Woodrow Wilson, the three great names 
which mark the three great American epopees. The 
epopee of acquiring liberty and democracy for your- 
selves; the greater epopee of consolidating that liberty 
and democracy also for yourselves, and the greater of 
all, the epopee of acquiring and securing liberty and 
democracy for the World. 

It is not now a question of giving us a merely nominal 
citizenship as the one which this Act has given us; the 
question now is to make that citizenship effective. If 
you have made us citizens of this great Republic, you 
must realize that while this citizenship imposes upon 
us burdens and duties which we are obliged to bear 
and discharge as faithfully and as loyally as anyone 
of you, by a reciprocal law of compensation you must 
recognize to us ungrudgingly and generously the rights 
and privileges and immunities appertaining to that 
citizenship. 

How can you, for instance, consistently with your 
beautiful traditions pass and impose on us laws and 
regulations which affect our social, political and eco- 
nomical life; laws and regulations which affect our 
individual and collective happiness; laws which impose 
upon us burdens and taxes, and deprivations and con- 



12 

tributions of blood and the shedding of tears of our 
mothers, and our wives, and our sisters, and our sweet- 
hearts; how can you, I say, in the name of justice and 
equity and fair play, how can you do all these things, 
without giving us, not as a courtesy, not as a favor, but 
as a right, as an American right imbedded in the very 
heart and core of American institutions, an adequate 
and just and equitable and fair representation in the 
making of those laws? 

Is it fair, is it equitable, is it just, is it American, that 
you should go into Congress and dispose of our boys, 
without giving us the privilege to raise our voice in 
pride and claim the glory of proclaiming highly, very 
highly, that we, ourselves through our legitimate rep- 
resentatives in Congress, had sent them to Europe, to 
fight for the rights of peoples and the liberty of the 
World? 

No, I say; it is not American, it is not just, it is not 
equitable, it is not fair. . . . 

I have not come here, ladies and gentlemen, to ques- 
tion the validity nor the enforcement, nor even the 
applicability to Porto Rico of the National Draft Laws. 
As the representative of Porto Rico, on this occasion, 
as a Porto Rican myself, I feel proud that our boys are 
gladly going to the battlefields of Europe to fight, shoul- 
der to shoulder with your boys, for democracy and 
liberty, which is our own cause and the cause of the 
United States, and the World. As the representative 
of Porto Rico on this festival of rejoicing and gratitude, 
I am here this afternoon to convey to you a message 
of frankness, a message of loyalty, a message of solidar- 
ity and frienship. 



13 

But it would not be an act of faithfulness on my part, 
I should not be properly discharging the obligations of 
my trust, if I did not speak to you with candor and told 
you all these things lest that by mere praises, which 
might soothe your vanity but not disclose to you the 
real state of things, the Act which we are celebrating 
here should be taken as fulfilling and satisfying the 
whole aspirations of the people for whose welfare it 
was undoubtedly intended by the men who took part 
in its passage and by those who took in it a favorable 
interest. 

It is not our intention, it is not our wish and it shall 
not be our action, to create any difficulty or embarrass- 
ment for the United States at this critical moment in 
which we all must be united as a single man, with a 
single purpose, for a single cause: the triumph of 
democracy over despotism and force, the winning of 
this war. 

But we want to make it clear, we want to leave no 
room for misunderstanding, no room for intentional 
misrepresentation or honorable mistake, that if we are 
now sharing the infinite sufferings and deprivations 
and sacrifices of our active and direct participation in 
this war; if we are good enough, and capable enough, 
and competent enough to contribute with our efforts, 
and with our treasure, and with the flower of our 
manhood and blood to the liberation of the world; 
when this war is over and liberty and democracy are 
safe for the World, we expect you to do us complete 
justice; we expect this great and noble and generous 
nation to give us our full measure of liberty, whether 
in the form of political independency, administrative 



14 

autonomy, or American statehood. In the first case, 
we might be established as a republic, like Cuba; in 
the second case, we might be established as a Republi- 
can and autonomous commonwealth much on the same 
plan of Australia or Canada; and in the third case, we 
might be established as a full-fledged State of this Union 
on an equal footing with the other States. Let me warn 
you, by the way, that I am not speaking here for 
any of the political parties of Porto Rico, for I am 
representing none of them, and therefore I am not ex- 
pressing the views of any of them as to the ultimate 
choice to be made of any of these solutions. I do say, 
however, that whatever that choice may be, it must be 
founded on the wishes of the Porto Rican people, and 
on sound and satisfactory reasons of national and in- 
ternational policy to be followed by the United States. 
And when the proper time arrives, I have no doubt that 
we all shall come to a satisfactory understanding in 
order to consolidate and secure for all time the bonds 
of solidarity and friendship, which must unite us for- 
ever. 

In the meantime, however, is it not perfectly reason- 
able, perfectly natural, and just, and equitable and fair 
that when our boys are sent abroad to fight and lay 
down their lives to maintain a right and a principle, 
we should regard it as very important that they be 
made to feel that this same right and this same princi- 
ple is not to be denied, but to be accorded and assured 
to the land of their birth at the conclusion of this war? 

I must not impose any longer upon your indulgence. 
I know that the short time assigned to me for my dis- 



15 

course has already expired. But let me say just one 
word more, and that is of apology, for I know that some 
of the things I have said to you this afternoon are 
rather unpleasant, rather disagreeable, rather out of 
the ordinary run of things. For all that, I must ask 
your forbearance and tolerance, and I am sure that, 
in exchange, you will be largely compensated by the 
pleasant and agreeable things that will be said by the 
silver-tongued speakers who are to come after me to 
occupy this floor. 
I thank you. 



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